Bradshaw, Warren

K-25 Oral History Interview
Date: 5/19/05
Interviewee: Warren Bradshaw
Interviewer: Bart Callan
[1:00:10]
Callan, B.: Go ahead and look at me and not at the cameraman. Just try to block all of this junk around you out of your mind and just kind of feel like we’re just sitting here across from each other having a conversation. Sound reasonable?
Bradshaw, W.: Yep.
Callan, B.: Okay. Do you have any questions for me at this point before we get started?
Bradshaw, W.: No, not that I know of.
Callan, B.: No? Okay. Well, we’re going to go ahead and start then and give you the trick question first and that’s just go ahead and state your name and spell you name out as you’d like to have it noted on the video.
Bradshaw, W.: Warren R. Bradshaw. And they call me Ralph Bradshaw, but most people do instead of Warren.
Callan, B.: Okay. And the spelling for Bradshaw?
Bradshaw, W.: B-R-A-D-S-H-A-W.
Callan, B.: Okay. And how old are you?
[1:01:50]
Bradshaw, W.: 84.
Callan, B.: Okay. Go ahead and tell me where you were born and go ahead and expand on that if you want to.
Bradshaw, W.: I was born in Lenoir City, Tennessee. We moved to Loudon County on the farm in ‘30. I went in service in 1940 until about 1946. Went to work at K-25 in 19 -- may the ninth, 1946.
Callan, B.: Okay. So what kind of work did you do prior to working at K-25?
Bradshaw, W.: I came straight out of the army and went over there.
Callan, B.: Okay. Did you attend high school in --
Bradshaw, W.: No.
Callan, B.: You did not --
Bradshaw, W.: Eighth grade.
Callan, B.: Okay.
[crew talk]
[1:02:58]
Callan, B.: Tell me why you came to work at K-25. What was it that attracted you to come? How did you hear about it?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, I heard about it while I was in service. I was writing to a lady that lived in Oliver Springs and she called me and wanted to know if I had ever heard of Oak Ridge, just a little bit close to Oliver Springs. And then when I go out, they said well that’s the best paying job around here. So I went over and had one of the neighbors pull me in the door and got me a job.
Callan, B.: What were your first recollections when you arrived out here?
Bradshaw, W.: At K-25?
Callan, B.: At K-25, when you first came up here.
Bradshaw, W.: I first went to the power house. I was in utilities as they called it at the power house and that was the first placed I worked. Then I went up to the K-1401 as a truck driver and worked there about two years. Then went in as a maintenance mechanic and spent the rest of my time as a maintenance mechanic.
[1:04:03]
Callan, B.: Okay. Hold on one second for me. So sort of give me a rundown of your work history at K-25. You said that you were driving trucks and then you were doing a maintenance mechanic. Give me a rundown about what you did during what years and --
Bradshaw, W.: Well, they years I drove the truck, I drove it for a labor crew and, I mean, to start with. Then I went into process and started hauling product cylinders and I stayed at that, I guess, a year. Then went into maintenance mechanic and I was there the rest of the time.
Callan, B.: Okay. How did you commute to and from work? What was that like?
Bradshaw, W.: Started out with a bus. We rode a bus for, oh, six or seven months, I guess. Then I got to riding with a man in a car and we rode in cars and carpooled the rest of the time I was there.
[1:05:09]
Callan, B.: Okay. While you were working out here, did you ever meet any of these famous people that came out or notable scientists?
Bradshaw, W.: No.
Callan, B.: Never saw any of them.
Bradshaw, W.: I saw Jimmy Carter go through and that was all.
[laughter]
Callan, B.: Let’s see, being that your from Tennessee, how close is the place that your from to Oak Ridge?
Bradshaw, W.: You mean the distance?
Callan, B.: Yes.
Bradshaw, W.: Probably 30 mile.
Callan, B.: Thirty miles?
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah.
Callan, B.: So, when you first came up here and you saw K-25, I mean, kind of describe what you thought about it and what was going on.
[1:05:52]
Bradshaw, W.: Well, I thought it was a great big place of business and then after I come they built 29, 31, and 33. K-25 and K-27 was the only product buildings there then. Then they had 1401, it was a big machine shop in it and a repair building. The U seemed like a big thing. It was probably 8/10 of a mile through it inside. They say it’s over two miles around it.
Callan, B.: Can you kind of give me a description of the building like for something that has never seen it, how would you describe it?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, just like a horseshoe, the U as we called it. They was -- it was a horseshoe, but down in the closed end there was a place for a road to go each way under it.
Callan, B.: Okay. Let’s see -- when you were hauling materials, what was it you were hauling and where from and where to?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, it was product in there, we hauled it for storage.
[1:07:13]
Callan, B.: Okay. Let’s say, what were the perceptions of people? I mean, because you know people around Tennessee because you’re from Tennessee. What were the perceptions of people that didn’t work here? What did they think about --
Bradshaw, W.: Some of them didn’t like it. [laughs].
Callan, B.: What do you mean?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, I’ll give you an instance when I was driving a truck, I was hauling sawdust for this big floor and I was on the AEC area and this old man come over and just jumped all over me for hauling sawdust. I said, old man, what’s the matter with you? He said, they won’t let me go in there and see what’s in there. [laughs]. The people didn’t like it when they took their ground, naturally.
Callan, B.: We’ve interviewed a couple of people that had some of the land that was here that they -- I guess allocated or procured from the site.
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah.
[1:08:13]
Callan, B.: Did you know any of the people that had land out here prior to the --
Bradshaw, W.: Not before then I didn’t. I got acquainted with a few after I got out here and some of them still regretted it and some of them said they paid more than it’s worth.
Callan, B.: So, tell me more about the discontent that they had that their land got taken from them.
Bradshaw, W.: Oh, it was homesteads. That’s what they didn’t like. Some of them had been held for generations. For instance, the Johnson Farm, I worked with one of them boys. I believe they said their farm had been in the generation for about three years -- thirty years.
Callan, B.: And they just had to --
Bradshaw, W.: Had to get up and move.
Callan, B.: If people were to ask you now what kind of work was done here, how would you describe it?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, I don’t really know how to do that. We’ve done all breakdowns and remodeling and replacing. Part of it was heavy and part of it wasn’t.
[1:09:38]
Callan, B.: Okay. What are -- tell me some of your most vivid recollections, some of your favorite recollections of the time that you spent out here at Oak Ridge and K-25.
Bradshaw, W.: Well, of course there was an awful lot of horseplay went on. [laughs]. That was part of it.
Callan, B.: I want to hear about horseplay. Tell me about the horseplay that went on around here.
Bradshaw, W.: And uh, oh, there was always some catch the person stealing, dumping water on them, ice water of course. In one building I was in it got so bad we had to quit, was afraid somebody was going to get hurt. They’d put water up the stairs and put this “hot” ice in it. Then when they decided to throw it on somebody, they’d take what ice was left out and throw it on them.
Callan, B.: So, you’d be awful cold then.
Bradshaw, W.: [Laughs]. Oh yeah, it’d be cold. [laughs].
[1:10:44]
Callan, B.: Any other stuff like that, do you remember?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, that’s the only building that went on in where I worked and it just got to where they just -- we decided it was getting out of hand and we just quit it ourselves.
Callan, B.: What would you say that you liked the most about working at K-25?
Bradshaw, W.: The money. [laughs].
Callan, B.: Good answer. [laughter] What would you that you disliked the most about working at K-25?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, I didn’t like the gas masks too well. But actually, I enjoyed it. I never had a foreman I couldn’t get along with. See, a lot of them had foremen they had nothing but trouble with. I never did have one of them.
Callan, B.: So what was your supervisor like?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, the supervisor I liked, he wouldn’t ask you to do nothing he wouldn’t do himself. I’d crawled in pipes and he crawled in them with me, sit there while we worked in them.
[1:11:55]
Callan, B.: Did you -- are you familiar, just out of curiosity, familiar with Hackworth?
Bradshaw, W.: Jim?
Callan, B.: Yes.
Bradshaw, W.: Oh yeah, I worked with Jim.
Callan, B.: Was he one of the ones you liked?
Bradshaw, W.: Me and Jim worked together as a team one time.
Callan, B.: I interviewed Jim Hackworth. He was a great guy to talk to.
Bradshaw, W.: Jim Hackworth’s a great guy. He come in there as a trainee and wound up shift superintendent. [laughs]
Callan, B.: He worked his way up the ladder.
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah, he did.
Callan, B.: So what type of work did you guys do together?
Bradshaw, W.: He was a maintenance mechanic too.
Callan, B.: He told me a story about I guess what he called Easter egg hunts. Do you remember that?
Bradshaw, W.: Oh yeah, I remember them.
[1:12:44]
Callan, B.: Tell me about the Easter egg hunts. Tell me what it is and --
Bradshaw, W.: Well, there’d be a compressor deblade and they’d throw it all through the pipe and they called it Easter egg hunting. You had to get it all out of there or it’d get in another compressor and deblade it, see? Yeah, they crawled through them pipe, that’s an Easter egg hunt.
Callan, B.: So did you ever have to go and do that?
Bradshaw, W.: No. No. Operators done that most of the time. Now, I’ve crawled back in them and repaired the valves, crawled in there and repaired them and take them out.
Callan, B.: How often did you have to do that?
Bradshaw, W.: Not too often. It’s this one building I remember that we done that in and it had big valves in it. At K-25, we pulled the valves out if we had to do something with them. I mean, the old, original K-25.
Callan, B.: Tell me about -- when you started working there, this was right after they dropped the bomb, you said 1946, right?
[1:13:58]
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah.
Callan, B.: Okay. It was still a gated city then at that point, Oak Ridge?
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah. It was -- you had to get a pass for your wife to come in. Oak Ridge, the plants was all surrounded by guards. Then they moved the fence outside the plant areas, but then the plants was inside the fence with the city.
Callan, B.: How did people communicate to fellow workers in a secret facility like that?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, they had the buses come out of Oak Ridge too. We had to carry badges to get in and out.
Callan, B.: Was it hard for you to be working around secret stuff and then go home to your family and not be able to tell them what you were doing?
Bradshaw, W.: Never mentioned it at home.
Callan, B.: What were the physical working conditions like at the facility?
[1:15:01]
Bradshaw, W.: Well, they was rough sometimes.
Callan, B.: Tell me about it.
Bradshaw, W.: Well, I saw them when they’d wrap people’s hands and tell then to keep them wrapped until the next day or they’d get contaminated.
Callan, B.: Why would you have to have your hands wrapped?
Bradshaw, W.: They didn’t get it all off when they washed it. They’d wash it again the next day.
Callan, B.: What about other physical conditions at the facility? Was it really hot in there?
Bradshaw, W.: Oh yeah, it was hot. It was plenty hot; especially in 33 -- now K-25 wasn’t too bad.
Callan, B.: Until you went into the cell houses --
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah.
Callan, B.: -- I suppose those are pretty hot.
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah, they was hot.
Callan, B.: How often did you have to work in those?
[1:16:01]
Bradshaw, W.: Not too often. Usually if we worked in them we had to -- some had to stand outside and watch us. We wouldn’t stay in there too long at a time.
Callan, B.: Describe for me what the cell housings are and --
Bradshaw, W.: The cell housing was just a -- compared to a house, it was square with a flat top on it with a motor sitting outside.
Callan, B.: And what sort of maintenance stuff did you have to do inside those?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, once in a while we’d have to go in there and repair some copper leaks or something like that -- nothing major -- if it was major we shut it down and cool it down.
Callan, B.: So, you had to go in there and it wasn’t shut down, did you have to go in there for long periods of time?
Bradshaw, W.: No. Ten, fifteen minutes.
Callan, B.: Were there rules or regulations around the facility that were important to follow?
[1:17:10]
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah, they had safety regulations. You always had to get a permit to make it safe for you before you ever went into it.
Callan, B.: What other regulations did they have?
Bradshaw, W.: They’d give you this permit. You’d carry it yourself. And to make sure they didn’t turn it in too quick and you signed it, the mechanic signed and turned it in.
Callan, B.: Did the company place a pretty big emphasis on safety?
Bradshaw, W.: Yes.
Callan, B.: What sort of safety measures did they take?
Bradshaw, W.: They -- well, on the last they was having, I believe, a ten-minute safety meeting every day. Then had a big one every 30 days. They pushed safety pretty good.
Callan, B.: Did they perform, I guess, regular checkups?
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah.
Callan, B.: How often did they do and what did they do?
[1:18:15]
Bradshaw, W.: We had a dispensary in there, see, with doctors in it. Certain areas, they’d check us every 90 days and then they’d give us a physical once a year.
Callan, B.: So all for all, they did pretty regular testing.
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah, yeah, they kept pretty close check on you.
Callan, B.: How about your coworkers? What were they like?
Bradshaw, W.: Most of them was pretty good. We had a few weak, kind of aggravating -- a little. But most of them was pretty nice. I know I had one I worked with about a year. They give -- we trade him and they give him to somebody else. A guy come in at lunch and said, how do you listen to him like that and I said, “You just learn to turn him off like a radio.” [laughter]
Callan, B.: I know people like that myself. [laughter] What about at lunchtime? What was the cafeteria like?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, they had a full cafeteria. We didn’t use it much, but they had a full cafeteria and then along -- of a night -- they had small canteens.
[1:19:40]
Callan, B.: So did you normally eat at the plant or eat at home or?
Bradshaw, W.: Nah. Usually eat at the plant, but I wouldn’t go to the main cafeteria. They had these canteens, didn’t have to wait on them -- wait in line so long.
Callan, B.: There were usually lines out there at the --
Bradshaw, W.: Cafeteria, yeah. A lot of the times there was.
Callan, B.: Were you ever hurt while working out there? What happened?
Bradshaw, W.: No major injury all the time I was there. I was hurt a couple of times, I hurt my arm once -- but nothing major.
Callan, B.: Must have been pretty good at following the safety rules.
Bradshaw, W.: Well, I tried to follow them. And we’ve had some that got hurt pretty bad; we had one boy run through an elevator with tow motor. They don’t know what happened to him. Of course, the elevators to the bottom and he was on the second floor when he run through the door. [laughs].
[1:20:43]
Callan, B.: Let’s see. You weren’t quite working here in 1945, but I’m sure you remember August 6, 1945? That was the day the bomb was dropped.
Bradshaw, W.: I sure do.
Callan, B.: Tell me about what that day was like?
Bradshaw, W.: I was in Germany [laughs] when that dropped.
Callan, B.: So what was your reaction to that news?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, it was a pretty good reaction to me because I had a brother who was fixin’ to go to Japan. He was Germany then and he was fixin’ to go to Japan. He didn’t have -- you come out on the point system then. He didn’t have enough points to get out and he had a Japan schedule. They dropped that bomb and that rerouted a lot of them.
Callan, B.: So it was pretty good news then?
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah, it was good news.
[1:21:45]
Callan, B.: At the time that you were in Germany, were you familiar at all with what was going on at Oak Ridge?
Bradshaw, W.: I just, through mail they told us – I had a brother-in-law that worked at Oak Ridge and my sister said well, he’s working at Oak Ridge and that’s all they’d say. Security was tight then. We had one boy over and they’d say what do you do over there and he said, repair vacuum cleaners. That’s what he always told them. But I was never asked point blank what I done over there. I don’t reckon -- remember it if it was.
Callan, B.: It’s a big vacuum cleaner repair shop?
Bradshaw, W.: [Laughs]. No, he just told them that. [laughs].
Callan, B.: How do you think that history is going to view the Manhattan Project and the outcome of the Manhattan Project, future generations?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, I don’t know. If they leave part of it, as history, it’ll be something. And they’re talking like they might. Then -- well they have tours over there now. They used to have tours through the plant, but they stopped that. I mean, when it was running. Certain areas of it they’d take you through. Me and my wife went through K-33 when it was running. You can’t ask no questions, you just had to listen.
[1:23:26]
Callan, B.: How do you think future generations will look back and will be recorded in history what was done out here at K-25 and how it was related to the Manhattan Project and to the dropping of the bomb? How do you think people will look at that?
Bradshaw, W.: They’ll look at it a long time and then it fade away like World War II.
Callan, B.: After or actually during the period that you were working there, what was the primary goal of the plant? What was the plant doing during the period that you worked there after the Manhattan Project?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, they was still making product and I don’t know how much, but -- then they started shutting part of it down. About the time I left they started shutting part of it down.
[1:24:32]
Callan, B.: And that was in 1964, is that --
Bradshaw, W.: 1983.
Callan, B.: When they started shutting it down? What about -- do you remember 1964? I guess they put the facility on standby?
Bradshaw, W.: That’s when they put the old original on standby.
Callan, B.: Okay.
Bradshaw, W.: The old K-25.
Callan, B.: What did you do when they put K-25 on a standby?
Bradshaw, W.: Well they moved the people on the other side -- they moved them to K-29, 31, 33. They kept them running a long time after that and they’d done -- settled down until they didn’t have a lot of employees.
Callan, B.: Did you -- being a maintenance mechanic, were there things you had to do to help put that facility on standby? Was there a lot of --
Bradshaw, W.: No, there wasn’t a lot of work to it. They just shut it down.
[1:25:26]
Callan, B.: Okay, we’re going to go ahead and switch out tapes really quick because we only got 30 minutes on this tape and we’ve got to --
[End Tape 1, Begin Tape 2]
[2:00:07]
Bradshaw, W.: And there was no building -- no windows in that building neither.
Callan, B.: Oh really?
Bradshaw, W.: Nope.
Callan, B.: Okay, we’re going again. What are your thoughts about how activities that were accomplished at K-25 revolutionized the world?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, it caused some problems.
Callan, B.: What kind of problems?
Bradshaw, W.: Of course they always -- they thought then they had atomic tied up, but it ain’t worked. Everybody’s got a hold of it now. And I’ve heard it said that we just had the two bombs we dropped on Japan at that time complete, but they didn’t know. I heard that.
[2:01:26]
Callan, B.: What other thoughts do you have about how --
Bradshaw, W.: And this senator from Texas engineered Oak Ridge. He’s the one located the property, Sam Ravern (phonetic sp.). He was originally from Kingston down here, but he’s a senator in Texas and I heard them interviewing him once. They said, what was the happiest moment of his life while he was in there. He said, when they dropped that bomb down in Mexico and it went off. He said, we talked these people out of millions of dollars without telling them what it was for. They say that’s the most kept secret in the world at that time.
Callan, B.: Big secret too.
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah. [laughs]. You couldn’t get nobody to talk that was in there.
Callan, B.: With your job, what would you say is your most challenging assignment or most challenging thing that you had to do either by yourself or as a group?
[2:02:42]
Bradshaw, W.: Well, I’d say when they had some fans back there it was challenging. They called them a vault fan. Everybody hated them, they was so dirty. I remember once we was having trouble knocking seals out; found out they had the motor running backwards. [laughs].
Callan, B.: So, you have these cascades of all these motors and one of them was --
Bradshaw, W.: Running backwards.
Callan, B.: -- going in the opposite direction.
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah. They wired it up wrong. They was running the wrong way. We just kept repairing and repairing and finally they -- they finally checked the motor.
Callan, B.: What would you say is your most significant accomplishment when working at K-25?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, I don’t hardly know. I liked the work. It was dangerous, but I liked it. A lot of it was awful heavy, but we never did get nobody killed.
Callan, B.: What kind of hours did you usually work?
[2:04:12]
Bradshaw, W.: I worked swing shift for 13 years; rotated around the clock.
Callan, B.: So sometimes you were working in the middle of the night and --
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah. We worked days - eight to four - four to twelve - and twelve to eight. That’s the way we worked it.
Callan, B.: Were you married at the time?
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah.
Callan, B.: How did your wife feel about that?
Bradshaw, W.: You know, she adjusted to it pretty good. I had to learn to sleep with the kids. She’d make more racket than them trying to keep them quiet and I told her, I said let them go, just let me get used to it. And I did. They could play all over the house and never wake me up.
Callan, B.: What did your spouse do? Did she live out here as well?
Bradshaw, W.: No. No, after the kids went to school she went to work at Lenoir City.
[2:05:14]
Callan, B.: But, initially coming out here, you lived in Oak Ridge?
Bradshaw, W.: No, I never did live in Oak Ridge.
Callan, B.: So you commuted?
Bradshaw, W.: Commuted all the way.
Callan, B.: That was on the bus?
Bradshaw, W.: On the bus and then when the buses quit we started driving cars.
Callan, B.: So you never had to worry about staying in dorms or --
Bradshaw, W.: No.
Callan, B.: A houses, B houses?
Bradshaw, W.: No. No.
Callan, B.: What sort of roles did women have working out here?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, when I left they’d started -- women working in maintenance. We had one maintenance mechanic as a women. A lot of them was in lubrication and there was some of them in repair in 1401. But on the last there, if they wanted to try, they’d let them try anything.
[2:06:14]
Callan, B.: Was that initially coming out here? Was that the sort of stuff the women were doing when you first came out?
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah. Yeah.
Callan, B.: Were they treated differently?
Bradshaw, W.: No. They said they wasn’t. No, they didn’t seem to think they was.
Callan, B.: Initially when you came out here, you were, you know, like the ‘45 era, was there more or less women than there were men out here?
Bradshaw, W.: At that time I’d say they was more women because the process system and operation was run mostly by women then. They was a lot of women work out there.
Callan, B.: Were you married at the time?
Bradshaw, W.: No. I wasn’t married when I went to work here.
Callan, B.: So was that nice?
Bradshaw, W.: Huh?
[2:07:07]
Callan, B.: Was it nice having a lot of women out there working with you?
Bradshaw, W.: [Laughs]. You know, I was never on that floor they was on.
Callan, B.: What about African-Americans and other minorities? Were they working out there?
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah.
Callan, B.: What sort of roles did they have?
Bradshaw, W.: They just finally got in just like everybody else. I had a good friend was a welder got burned up out there after I left. He was black. They just -- man, I first went there about all they done was labor, but then they begin to branch out and they was all over the place.
Callan, B.: Were they treated pretty well or were they treated differently?
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah, they was. Yep. They didn’t seem to resent them coming into the areas I was in.
Callan, B.: When you were married and working out here, was your spouse pretty supportive of your work?
[2:08:08]
Bradshaw, W.: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Callan, B.: What was family life at home?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, they kind of got used to it too. The kids had a little trouble wondering why I wasn’t there of a night lot of the time, but they finally learned.
Callan, B.: Did you ever, I guess, pretty much after your shift you probably commuted all the way back home. You probably didn’t stay around Oak Ridge itself?
Bradshaw, W.: No. No.
Callan, B.: Any sort of social activity?
Bradshaw, W.: See, it’s twelve miles from K-25 to Oak Ridge and I went the other way.
Callan, B.: Oh, I know what I was going to ask you. It wasn’t on my list. What about unions and labor strikes? Was there ever any dispute between the managers and the laborers? Was there every any strikes?
[2:09:08]
Bradshaw, W.: Well, we had two strikes.
Callan, B.: Tell me about both of them.
Bradshaw, W.: The first one didn’t last but four days, I believe. But you know management; they’d come by the picket line and talk to you. So they didn’t -- they’d say they was sorry they didn’t get along. And one in particular, we was what we call wowing. He’d leave home early, come by there and drink coffee with us.
Callan, B.: So they weren’t really heated strikes over anything?
Bradshaw, W.: No.
Callan, B.: Do you remember what they were about?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, one of them was wages and the other one was over something about -- going to make people -- if your doctor said you was sick they was going to make you come into the plant and let the plant doctor say you was sick. Well, we struck over that.
Callan, B.: So, if your doctor said you were sick, they still wanted you to come to work?
[2:10:16]
Bradshaw, W.: [laughs]. Yeah. They said we didn’t mean it -- so the company doctor would have to say it too. When they told John Bates that – he was the president and he said, “We’ll change that.”
Callan, B.: What was the -- John Bates? Was that the --
Bradshaw, W.: He was the President of the Union at that time.
Callan, B.: Tell me about John Bates. I haven’t heard anything about John Bates.
Bradshaw, W.: John Bates was the one of the orneriest men we ever had. And I knew one of the labor relation men, I talked to him, I knew him. He said when they went into a meeting; most union presidents had been there a while and followed a pattern. John Bates didn’t. He said, you didn’t know what he was libel to say. And he was a well thought of man. And he studied labor constantly.
Callan, B.: That’s interesting. I’ve never heard anything at all about John Bates. Initially when you started to work here at K-25, which company was it that hired you on? Did --
Bradshaw, W.: Carbide.
[2:11:30]
Callan, B.: It was Union Carbide?
Bradshaw, W.: Union Carbide. They called it Carbide and Carbon Corporation then; but, it is still the same company.
Callan, B.: How did you like working for Carbide?
Bradshaw, W.: I liked it.
Callan, B.: Most people seem to have liked working for them. Well, these are just kind of broad perspective questions I just want to get your take on. What do you think the future generations should remember about K-25?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, they should remember it was one of the daddy’s that ended World War II, for one thing. McArthur said it saved 250,000 lives at a minimum of Americans. And I heard a news reporter once said was interviewing Truman, you know, he was President when they dropped it. He said, if you knew then what it would do now, would you drop it? He said, in a minute I would. He said the American lives come first to me.
Callan, B.: I would agree. What do you think -- do you want to describe what the accomplishments were here at K-25 and what should be acknowledged about K-25? Like if someone was -- if you were to look in the encyclopedia, K-25 in the encyclopedia, what should be recognized about K-25?
[2:13:15]
Bradshaw, W.: Well, I don’t know about that. [laughs]. That’s getting a little deep for me.
Callan, B.: Well, I just wanted to get your take on it.
Bradshaw, W.: It should be -- should be well recognized. I know that; because it played an awful big part in World War II.
Callan, B.: Good. If -- is there anything else that you wanted to discuss or expand upon before the interview ends? Because those are all the questions that I had.
Bradshaw, W.: Not that I know of.
Callan, B.: Nothing else you want to preserve on tape for history?
Bradshaw, W.: [laughs] No. Not that I know of.
Callan, B.: Okay. Well, thank you Mr. Bradshaw.
[End of Interview]

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K-25 Oral History Interview
Date: 5/19/05
Interviewee: Warren Bradshaw
Interviewer: Bart Callan
[1:00:10]
Callan, B.: Go ahead and look at me and not at the cameraman. Just try to block all of this junk around you out of your mind and just kind of feel like we’re just sitting here across from each other having a conversation. Sound reasonable?
Bradshaw, W.: Yep.
Callan, B.: Okay. Do you have any questions for me at this point before we get started?
Bradshaw, W.: No, not that I know of.
Callan, B.: No? Okay. Well, we’re going to go ahead and start then and give you the trick question first and that’s just go ahead and state your name and spell you name out as you’d like to have it noted on the video.
Bradshaw, W.: Warren R. Bradshaw. And they call me Ralph Bradshaw, but most people do instead of Warren.
Callan, B.: Okay. And the spelling for Bradshaw?
Bradshaw, W.: B-R-A-D-S-H-A-W.
Callan, B.: Okay. And how old are you?
[1:01:50]
Bradshaw, W.: 84.
Callan, B.: Okay. Go ahead and tell me where you were born and go ahead and expand on that if you want to.
Bradshaw, W.: I was born in Lenoir City, Tennessee. We moved to Loudon County on the farm in ‘30. I went in service in 1940 until about 1946. Went to work at K-25 in 19 -- may the ninth, 1946.
Callan, B.: Okay. So what kind of work did you do prior to working at K-25?
Bradshaw, W.: I came straight out of the army and went over there.
Callan, B.: Okay. Did you attend high school in --
Bradshaw, W.: No.
Callan, B.: You did not --
Bradshaw, W.: Eighth grade.
Callan, B.: Okay.
[crew talk]
[1:02:58]
Callan, B.: Tell me why you came to work at K-25. What was it that attracted you to come? How did you hear about it?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, I heard about it while I was in service. I was writing to a lady that lived in Oliver Springs and she called me and wanted to know if I had ever heard of Oak Ridge, just a little bit close to Oliver Springs. And then when I go out, they said well that’s the best paying job around here. So I went over and had one of the neighbors pull me in the door and got me a job.
Callan, B.: What were your first recollections when you arrived out here?
Bradshaw, W.: At K-25?
Callan, B.: At K-25, when you first came up here.
Bradshaw, W.: I first went to the power house. I was in utilities as they called it at the power house and that was the first placed I worked. Then I went up to the K-1401 as a truck driver and worked there about two years. Then went in as a maintenance mechanic and spent the rest of my time as a maintenance mechanic.
[1:04:03]
Callan, B.: Okay. Hold on one second for me. So sort of give me a rundown of your work history at K-25. You said that you were driving trucks and then you were doing a maintenance mechanic. Give me a rundown about what you did during what years and --
Bradshaw, W.: Well, they years I drove the truck, I drove it for a labor crew and, I mean, to start with. Then I went into process and started hauling product cylinders and I stayed at that, I guess, a year. Then went into maintenance mechanic and I was there the rest of the time.
Callan, B.: Okay. How did you commute to and from work? What was that like?
Bradshaw, W.: Started out with a bus. We rode a bus for, oh, six or seven months, I guess. Then I got to riding with a man in a car and we rode in cars and carpooled the rest of the time I was there.
[1:05:09]
Callan, B.: Okay. While you were working out here, did you ever meet any of these famous people that came out or notable scientists?
Bradshaw, W.: No.
Callan, B.: Never saw any of them.
Bradshaw, W.: I saw Jimmy Carter go through and that was all.
[laughter]
Callan, B.: Let’s see, being that your from Tennessee, how close is the place that your from to Oak Ridge?
Bradshaw, W.: You mean the distance?
Callan, B.: Yes.
Bradshaw, W.: Probably 30 mile.
Callan, B.: Thirty miles?
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah.
Callan, B.: So, when you first came up here and you saw K-25, I mean, kind of describe what you thought about it and what was going on.
[1:05:52]
Bradshaw, W.: Well, I thought it was a great big place of business and then after I come they built 29, 31, and 33. K-25 and K-27 was the only product buildings there then. Then they had 1401, it was a big machine shop in it and a repair building. The U seemed like a big thing. It was probably 8/10 of a mile through it inside. They say it’s over two miles around it.
Callan, B.: Can you kind of give me a description of the building like for something that has never seen it, how would you describe it?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, just like a horseshoe, the U as we called it. They was -- it was a horseshoe, but down in the closed end there was a place for a road to go each way under it.
Callan, B.: Okay. Let’s see -- when you were hauling materials, what was it you were hauling and where from and where to?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, it was product in there, we hauled it for storage.
[1:07:13]
Callan, B.: Okay. Let’s say, what were the perceptions of people? I mean, because you know people around Tennessee because you’re from Tennessee. What were the perceptions of people that didn’t work here? What did they think about --
Bradshaw, W.: Some of them didn’t like it. [laughs].
Callan, B.: What do you mean?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, I’ll give you an instance when I was driving a truck, I was hauling sawdust for this big floor and I was on the AEC area and this old man come over and just jumped all over me for hauling sawdust. I said, old man, what’s the matter with you? He said, they won’t let me go in there and see what’s in there. [laughs]. The people didn’t like it when they took their ground, naturally.
Callan, B.: We’ve interviewed a couple of people that had some of the land that was here that they -- I guess allocated or procured from the site.
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah.
[1:08:13]
Callan, B.: Did you know any of the people that had land out here prior to the --
Bradshaw, W.: Not before then I didn’t. I got acquainted with a few after I got out here and some of them still regretted it and some of them said they paid more than it’s worth.
Callan, B.: So, tell me more about the discontent that they had that their land got taken from them.
Bradshaw, W.: Oh, it was homesteads. That’s what they didn’t like. Some of them had been held for generations. For instance, the Johnson Farm, I worked with one of them boys. I believe they said their farm had been in the generation for about three years -- thirty years.
Callan, B.: And they just had to --
Bradshaw, W.: Had to get up and move.
Callan, B.: If people were to ask you now what kind of work was done here, how would you describe it?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, I don’t really know how to do that. We’ve done all breakdowns and remodeling and replacing. Part of it was heavy and part of it wasn’t.
[1:09:38]
Callan, B.: Okay. What are -- tell me some of your most vivid recollections, some of your favorite recollections of the time that you spent out here at Oak Ridge and K-25.
Bradshaw, W.: Well, of course there was an awful lot of horseplay went on. [laughs]. That was part of it.
Callan, B.: I want to hear about horseplay. Tell me about the horseplay that went on around here.
Bradshaw, W.: And uh, oh, there was always some catch the person stealing, dumping water on them, ice water of course. In one building I was in it got so bad we had to quit, was afraid somebody was going to get hurt. They’d put water up the stairs and put this “hot” ice in it. Then when they decided to throw it on somebody, they’d take what ice was left out and throw it on them.
Callan, B.: So, you’d be awful cold then.
Bradshaw, W.: [Laughs]. Oh yeah, it’d be cold. [laughs].
[1:10:44]
Callan, B.: Any other stuff like that, do you remember?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, that’s the only building that went on in where I worked and it just got to where they just -- we decided it was getting out of hand and we just quit it ourselves.
Callan, B.: What would you say that you liked the most about working at K-25?
Bradshaw, W.: The money. [laughs].
Callan, B.: Good answer. [laughter] What would you that you disliked the most about working at K-25?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, I didn’t like the gas masks too well. But actually, I enjoyed it. I never had a foreman I couldn’t get along with. See, a lot of them had foremen they had nothing but trouble with. I never did have one of them.
Callan, B.: So what was your supervisor like?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, the supervisor I liked, he wouldn’t ask you to do nothing he wouldn’t do himself. I’d crawled in pipes and he crawled in them with me, sit there while we worked in them.
[1:11:55]
Callan, B.: Did you -- are you familiar, just out of curiosity, familiar with Hackworth?
Bradshaw, W.: Jim?
Callan, B.: Yes.
Bradshaw, W.: Oh yeah, I worked with Jim.
Callan, B.: Was he one of the ones you liked?
Bradshaw, W.: Me and Jim worked together as a team one time.
Callan, B.: I interviewed Jim Hackworth. He was a great guy to talk to.
Bradshaw, W.: Jim Hackworth’s a great guy. He come in there as a trainee and wound up shift superintendent. [laughs]
Callan, B.: He worked his way up the ladder.
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah, he did.
Callan, B.: So what type of work did you guys do together?
Bradshaw, W.: He was a maintenance mechanic too.
Callan, B.: He told me a story about I guess what he called Easter egg hunts. Do you remember that?
Bradshaw, W.: Oh yeah, I remember them.
[1:12:44]
Callan, B.: Tell me about the Easter egg hunts. Tell me what it is and --
Bradshaw, W.: Well, there’d be a compressor deblade and they’d throw it all through the pipe and they called it Easter egg hunting. You had to get it all out of there or it’d get in another compressor and deblade it, see? Yeah, they crawled through them pipe, that’s an Easter egg hunt.
Callan, B.: So did you ever have to go and do that?
Bradshaw, W.: No. No. Operators done that most of the time. Now, I’ve crawled back in them and repaired the valves, crawled in there and repaired them and take them out.
Callan, B.: How often did you have to do that?
Bradshaw, W.: Not too often. It’s this one building I remember that we done that in and it had big valves in it. At K-25, we pulled the valves out if we had to do something with them. I mean, the old, original K-25.
Callan, B.: Tell me about -- when you started working there, this was right after they dropped the bomb, you said 1946, right?
[1:13:58]
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah.
Callan, B.: Okay. It was still a gated city then at that point, Oak Ridge?
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah. It was -- you had to get a pass for your wife to come in. Oak Ridge, the plants was all surrounded by guards. Then they moved the fence outside the plant areas, but then the plants was inside the fence with the city.
Callan, B.: How did people communicate to fellow workers in a secret facility like that?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, they had the buses come out of Oak Ridge too. We had to carry badges to get in and out.
Callan, B.: Was it hard for you to be working around secret stuff and then go home to your family and not be able to tell them what you were doing?
Bradshaw, W.: Never mentioned it at home.
Callan, B.: What were the physical working conditions like at the facility?
[1:15:01]
Bradshaw, W.: Well, they was rough sometimes.
Callan, B.: Tell me about it.
Bradshaw, W.: Well, I saw them when they’d wrap people’s hands and tell then to keep them wrapped until the next day or they’d get contaminated.
Callan, B.: Why would you have to have your hands wrapped?
Bradshaw, W.: They didn’t get it all off when they washed it. They’d wash it again the next day.
Callan, B.: What about other physical conditions at the facility? Was it really hot in there?
Bradshaw, W.: Oh yeah, it was hot. It was plenty hot; especially in 33 -- now K-25 wasn’t too bad.
Callan, B.: Until you went into the cell houses --
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah.
Callan, B.: -- I suppose those are pretty hot.
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah, they was hot.
Callan, B.: How often did you have to work in those?
[1:16:01]
Bradshaw, W.: Not too often. Usually if we worked in them we had to -- some had to stand outside and watch us. We wouldn’t stay in there too long at a time.
Callan, B.: Describe for me what the cell housings are and --
Bradshaw, W.: The cell housing was just a -- compared to a house, it was square with a flat top on it with a motor sitting outside.
Callan, B.: And what sort of maintenance stuff did you have to do inside those?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, once in a while we’d have to go in there and repair some copper leaks or something like that -- nothing major -- if it was major we shut it down and cool it down.
Callan, B.: So, you had to go in there and it wasn’t shut down, did you have to go in there for long periods of time?
Bradshaw, W.: No. Ten, fifteen minutes.
Callan, B.: Were there rules or regulations around the facility that were important to follow?
[1:17:10]
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah, they had safety regulations. You always had to get a permit to make it safe for you before you ever went into it.
Callan, B.: What other regulations did they have?
Bradshaw, W.: They’d give you this permit. You’d carry it yourself. And to make sure they didn’t turn it in too quick and you signed it, the mechanic signed and turned it in.
Callan, B.: Did the company place a pretty big emphasis on safety?
Bradshaw, W.: Yes.
Callan, B.: What sort of safety measures did they take?
Bradshaw, W.: They -- well, on the last they was having, I believe, a ten-minute safety meeting every day. Then had a big one every 30 days. They pushed safety pretty good.
Callan, B.: Did they perform, I guess, regular checkups?
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah.
Callan, B.: How often did they do and what did they do?
[1:18:15]
Bradshaw, W.: We had a dispensary in there, see, with doctors in it. Certain areas, they’d check us every 90 days and then they’d give us a physical once a year.
Callan, B.: So all for all, they did pretty regular testing.
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah, yeah, they kept pretty close check on you.
Callan, B.: How about your coworkers? What were they like?
Bradshaw, W.: Most of them was pretty good. We had a few weak, kind of aggravating -- a little. But most of them was pretty nice. I know I had one I worked with about a year. They give -- we trade him and they give him to somebody else. A guy come in at lunch and said, how do you listen to him like that and I said, “You just learn to turn him off like a radio.” [laughter]
Callan, B.: I know people like that myself. [laughter] What about at lunchtime? What was the cafeteria like?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, they had a full cafeteria. We didn’t use it much, but they had a full cafeteria and then along -- of a night -- they had small canteens.
[1:19:40]
Callan, B.: So did you normally eat at the plant or eat at home or?
Bradshaw, W.: Nah. Usually eat at the plant, but I wouldn’t go to the main cafeteria. They had these canteens, didn’t have to wait on them -- wait in line so long.
Callan, B.: There were usually lines out there at the --
Bradshaw, W.: Cafeteria, yeah. A lot of the times there was.
Callan, B.: Were you ever hurt while working out there? What happened?
Bradshaw, W.: No major injury all the time I was there. I was hurt a couple of times, I hurt my arm once -- but nothing major.
Callan, B.: Must have been pretty good at following the safety rules.
Bradshaw, W.: Well, I tried to follow them. And we’ve had some that got hurt pretty bad; we had one boy run through an elevator with tow motor. They don’t know what happened to him. Of course, the elevators to the bottom and he was on the second floor when he run through the door. [laughs].
[1:20:43]
Callan, B.: Let’s see. You weren’t quite working here in 1945, but I’m sure you remember August 6, 1945? That was the day the bomb was dropped.
Bradshaw, W.: I sure do.
Callan, B.: Tell me about what that day was like?
Bradshaw, W.: I was in Germany [laughs] when that dropped.
Callan, B.: So what was your reaction to that news?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, it was a pretty good reaction to me because I had a brother who was fixin’ to go to Japan. He was Germany then and he was fixin’ to go to Japan. He didn’t have -- you come out on the point system then. He didn’t have enough points to get out and he had a Japan schedule. They dropped that bomb and that rerouted a lot of them.
Callan, B.: So it was pretty good news then?
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah, it was good news.
[1:21:45]
Callan, B.: At the time that you were in Germany, were you familiar at all with what was going on at Oak Ridge?
Bradshaw, W.: I just, through mail they told us – I had a brother-in-law that worked at Oak Ridge and my sister said well, he’s working at Oak Ridge and that’s all they’d say. Security was tight then. We had one boy over and they’d say what do you do over there and he said, repair vacuum cleaners. That’s what he always told them. But I was never asked point blank what I done over there. I don’t reckon -- remember it if it was.
Callan, B.: It’s a big vacuum cleaner repair shop?
Bradshaw, W.: [Laughs]. No, he just told them that. [laughs].
Callan, B.: How do you think that history is going to view the Manhattan Project and the outcome of the Manhattan Project, future generations?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, I don’t know. If they leave part of it, as history, it’ll be something. And they’re talking like they might. Then -- well they have tours over there now. They used to have tours through the plant, but they stopped that. I mean, when it was running. Certain areas of it they’d take you through. Me and my wife went through K-33 when it was running. You can’t ask no questions, you just had to listen.
[1:23:26]
Callan, B.: How do you think future generations will look back and will be recorded in history what was done out here at K-25 and how it was related to the Manhattan Project and to the dropping of the bomb? How do you think people will look at that?
Bradshaw, W.: They’ll look at it a long time and then it fade away like World War II.
Callan, B.: After or actually during the period that you were working there, what was the primary goal of the plant? What was the plant doing during the period that you worked there after the Manhattan Project?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, they was still making product and I don’t know how much, but -- then they started shutting part of it down. About the time I left they started shutting part of it down.
[1:24:32]
Callan, B.: And that was in 1964, is that --
Bradshaw, W.: 1983.
Callan, B.: When they started shutting it down? What about -- do you remember 1964? I guess they put the facility on standby?
Bradshaw, W.: That’s when they put the old original on standby.
Callan, B.: Okay.
Bradshaw, W.: The old K-25.
Callan, B.: What did you do when they put K-25 on a standby?
Bradshaw, W.: Well they moved the people on the other side -- they moved them to K-29, 31, 33. They kept them running a long time after that and they’d done -- settled down until they didn’t have a lot of employees.
Callan, B.: Did you -- being a maintenance mechanic, were there things you had to do to help put that facility on standby? Was there a lot of --
Bradshaw, W.: No, there wasn’t a lot of work to it. They just shut it down.
[1:25:26]
Callan, B.: Okay, we’re going to go ahead and switch out tapes really quick because we only got 30 minutes on this tape and we’ve got to --
[End Tape 1, Begin Tape 2]
[2:00:07]
Bradshaw, W.: And there was no building -- no windows in that building neither.
Callan, B.: Oh really?
Bradshaw, W.: Nope.
Callan, B.: Okay, we’re going again. What are your thoughts about how activities that were accomplished at K-25 revolutionized the world?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, it caused some problems.
Callan, B.: What kind of problems?
Bradshaw, W.: Of course they always -- they thought then they had atomic tied up, but it ain’t worked. Everybody’s got a hold of it now. And I’ve heard it said that we just had the two bombs we dropped on Japan at that time complete, but they didn’t know. I heard that.
[2:01:26]
Callan, B.: What other thoughts do you have about how --
Bradshaw, W.: And this senator from Texas engineered Oak Ridge. He’s the one located the property, Sam Ravern (phonetic sp.). He was originally from Kingston down here, but he’s a senator in Texas and I heard them interviewing him once. They said, what was the happiest moment of his life while he was in there. He said, when they dropped that bomb down in Mexico and it went off. He said, we talked these people out of millions of dollars without telling them what it was for. They say that’s the most kept secret in the world at that time.
Callan, B.: Big secret too.
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah. [laughs]. You couldn’t get nobody to talk that was in there.
Callan, B.: With your job, what would you say is your most challenging assignment or most challenging thing that you had to do either by yourself or as a group?
[2:02:42]
Bradshaw, W.: Well, I’d say when they had some fans back there it was challenging. They called them a vault fan. Everybody hated them, they was so dirty. I remember once we was having trouble knocking seals out; found out they had the motor running backwards. [laughs].
Callan, B.: So, you have these cascades of all these motors and one of them was --
Bradshaw, W.: Running backwards.
Callan, B.: -- going in the opposite direction.
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah. They wired it up wrong. They was running the wrong way. We just kept repairing and repairing and finally they -- they finally checked the motor.
Callan, B.: What would you say is your most significant accomplishment when working at K-25?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, I don’t hardly know. I liked the work. It was dangerous, but I liked it. A lot of it was awful heavy, but we never did get nobody killed.
Callan, B.: What kind of hours did you usually work?
[2:04:12]
Bradshaw, W.: I worked swing shift for 13 years; rotated around the clock.
Callan, B.: So sometimes you were working in the middle of the night and --
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah. We worked days - eight to four - four to twelve - and twelve to eight. That’s the way we worked it.
Callan, B.: Were you married at the time?
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah.
Callan, B.: How did your wife feel about that?
Bradshaw, W.: You know, she adjusted to it pretty good. I had to learn to sleep with the kids. She’d make more racket than them trying to keep them quiet and I told her, I said let them go, just let me get used to it. And I did. They could play all over the house and never wake me up.
Callan, B.: What did your spouse do? Did she live out here as well?
Bradshaw, W.: No. No, after the kids went to school she went to work at Lenoir City.
[2:05:14]
Callan, B.: But, initially coming out here, you lived in Oak Ridge?
Bradshaw, W.: No, I never did live in Oak Ridge.
Callan, B.: So you commuted?
Bradshaw, W.: Commuted all the way.
Callan, B.: That was on the bus?
Bradshaw, W.: On the bus and then when the buses quit we started driving cars.
Callan, B.: So you never had to worry about staying in dorms or --
Bradshaw, W.: No.
Callan, B.: A houses, B houses?
Bradshaw, W.: No. No.
Callan, B.: What sort of roles did women have working out here?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, when I left they’d started -- women working in maintenance. We had one maintenance mechanic as a women. A lot of them was in lubrication and there was some of them in repair in 1401. But on the last there, if they wanted to try, they’d let them try anything.
[2:06:14]
Callan, B.: Was that initially coming out here? Was that the sort of stuff the women were doing when you first came out?
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah. Yeah.
Callan, B.: Were they treated differently?
Bradshaw, W.: No. They said they wasn’t. No, they didn’t seem to think they was.
Callan, B.: Initially when you came out here, you were, you know, like the ‘45 era, was there more or less women than there were men out here?
Bradshaw, W.: At that time I’d say they was more women because the process system and operation was run mostly by women then. They was a lot of women work out there.
Callan, B.: Were you married at the time?
Bradshaw, W.: No. I wasn’t married when I went to work here.
Callan, B.: So was that nice?
Bradshaw, W.: Huh?
[2:07:07]
Callan, B.: Was it nice having a lot of women out there working with you?
Bradshaw, W.: [Laughs]. You know, I was never on that floor they was on.
Callan, B.: What about African-Americans and other minorities? Were they working out there?
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah.
Callan, B.: What sort of roles did they have?
Bradshaw, W.: They just finally got in just like everybody else. I had a good friend was a welder got burned up out there after I left. He was black. They just -- man, I first went there about all they done was labor, but then they begin to branch out and they was all over the place.
Callan, B.: Were they treated pretty well or were they treated differently?
Bradshaw, W.: Yeah, they was. Yep. They didn’t seem to resent them coming into the areas I was in.
Callan, B.: When you were married and working out here, was your spouse pretty supportive of your work?
[2:08:08]
Bradshaw, W.: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Callan, B.: What was family life at home?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, they kind of got used to it too. The kids had a little trouble wondering why I wasn’t there of a night lot of the time, but they finally learned.
Callan, B.: Did you ever, I guess, pretty much after your shift you probably commuted all the way back home. You probably didn’t stay around Oak Ridge itself?
Bradshaw, W.: No. No.
Callan, B.: Any sort of social activity?
Bradshaw, W.: See, it’s twelve miles from K-25 to Oak Ridge and I went the other way.
Callan, B.: Oh, I know what I was going to ask you. It wasn’t on my list. What about unions and labor strikes? Was there ever any dispute between the managers and the laborers? Was there every any strikes?
[2:09:08]
Bradshaw, W.: Well, we had two strikes.
Callan, B.: Tell me about both of them.
Bradshaw, W.: The first one didn’t last but four days, I believe. But you know management; they’d come by the picket line and talk to you. So they didn’t -- they’d say they was sorry they didn’t get along. And one in particular, we was what we call wowing. He’d leave home early, come by there and drink coffee with us.
Callan, B.: So they weren’t really heated strikes over anything?
Bradshaw, W.: No.
Callan, B.: Do you remember what they were about?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, one of them was wages and the other one was over something about -- going to make people -- if your doctor said you was sick they was going to make you come into the plant and let the plant doctor say you was sick. Well, we struck over that.
Callan, B.: So, if your doctor said you were sick, they still wanted you to come to work?
[2:10:16]
Bradshaw, W.: [laughs]. Yeah. They said we didn’t mean it -- so the company doctor would have to say it too. When they told John Bates that – he was the president and he said, “We’ll change that.”
Callan, B.: What was the -- John Bates? Was that the --
Bradshaw, W.: He was the President of the Union at that time.
Callan, B.: Tell me about John Bates. I haven’t heard anything about John Bates.
Bradshaw, W.: John Bates was the one of the orneriest men we ever had. And I knew one of the labor relation men, I talked to him, I knew him. He said when they went into a meeting; most union presidents had been there a while and followed a pattern. John Bates didn’t. He said, you didn’t know what he was libel to say. And he was a well thought of man. And he studied labor constantly.
Callan, B.: That’s interesting. I’ve never heard anything at all about John Bates. Initially when you started to work here at K-25, which company was it that hired you on? Did --
Bradshaw, W.: Carbide.
[2:11:30]
Callan, B.: It was Union Carbide?
Bradshaw, W.: Union Carbide. They called it Carbide and Carbon Corporation then; but, it is still the same company.
Callan, B.: How did you like working for Carbide?
Bradshaw, W.: I liked it.
Callan, B.: Most people seem to have liked working for them. Well, these are just kind of broad perspective questions I just want to get your take on. What do you think the future generations should remember about K-25?
Bradshaw, W.: Well, they should remember it was one of the daddy’s that ended World War II, for one thing. McArthur said it saved 250,000 lives at a minimum of Americans. And I heard a news reporter once said was interviewing Truman, you know, he was President when they dropped it. He said, if you knew then what it would do now, would you drop it? He said, in a minute I would. He said the American lives come first to me.
Callan, B.: I would agree. What do you think -- do you want to describe what the accomplishments were here at K-25 and what should be acknowledged about K-25? Like if someone was -- if you were to look in the encyclopedia, K-25 in the encyclopedia, what should be recognized about K-25?
[2:13:15]
Bradshaw, W.: Well, I don’t know about that. [laughs]. That’s getting a little deep for me.
Callan, B.: Well, I just wanted to get your take on it.
Bradshaw, W.: It should be -- should be well recognized. I know that; because it played an awful big part in World War II.
Callan, B.: Good. If -- is there anything else that you wanted to discuss or expand upon before the interview ends? Because those are all the questions that I had.
Bradshaw, W.: Not that I know of.
Callan, B.: Nothing else you want to preserve on tape for history?
Bradshaw, W.: [laughs] No. Not that I know of.
Callan, B.: Okay. Well, thank you Mr. Bradshaw.
[End of Interview]